Do you have any little family traditions that you carry out each year? When do you put your decorations up? Do you wait until after lunch to open presents, or do you open some on Christmas Eve? Do you always go out for a walk after lunch, or do you flop in front of the TV or entertain the children? What time do you eat the Christmas meal and does your household leave Santa a mince pie on Christmas Eve?

Mostly over here decorations don't go up until after the 8th but not a lot of people follow that superstition anymore! In our house my dad won't let us open our presents until christmas night, after dinner which is usually around 8pm i think its awfully cruel *L*

We are going to put up the decorations the weekend after next, that way they are up for two weeks before and then take them down a week after.

We are having both parents and a sister round this year so a full house. But I am quite looking forward to it.
Christmas dinner will be at about 1pm (hubbys mum is a diabetic so can't really have it mid afternoon) then in the evening I will set out the table with all the cold turkey and ham, salad, nibbles and bread, and everyone will help themselves.

One tradition that hubby's family have, and our family never did, was to have baked ham as well as turkey on the dinner plate. Our family always have the sausages and bacon wraps. So we are having both this year.

Kids get to open their presents on Xmas day morning, but I am going to try to get them to wait until hubby, and visiting grandma and grandad are up. I'll let you know how that goes:laugh:

As for the rest of the day, play games with the kids, watch TV, and get someone else to do the washing up.

If hubby and I have bought one another pressies, then we open them on Xmas Eve, whilst sharing a nice glass or two of something bubbly.

Then Xmas Day we get to my parents house at 7am armed with two stuffed stockings and their pressies which we put around the tree. We swop stockings and open them first whilst enjoying tea and yummy biscuits.

We then open pressies ... one at a time so we can see what everyone has.

After that we have a small cooked breakfast.

At about 11am Mr.B and i go back home (although that will change when / if we move) and see the cats and rest our full brekkie bellies.

At 1pm we return and have champage. Dinner is around 3pm.

After dinner we watch an hours worth of TV whilst dinner goes down, and then the games come out. We love Trvial Persuit and cards. If we have had any other games for Xmas then we play them too (my dad always has to read the rules).

I love Xmas Day. We all sit in our silly hats, and mum and dad make their own crackers so we have lovely pressies in them, like mascara / lipstick for the ladies, and key rings / miniture booze bottles for the lads.

It really is a family day - but i do like it when i get home in the evening and back to reality. I eat so much that my belly aches for about a day afterwards !!

Christmas Eve is actually my favourite day, it's the anticipation that I love. Mr V has to work in the morning usually, so the children and I will make mince pies whilst listening to the 'Carols from Kings' on the radio. Then when Mr V comes home we all sit and watch whatever family film is on TV that afternoon. We usually cook and glaze a ham in the evening ready for the next day and then one of us will read the poem 'The Night Before Christmas' before the children go to bed. We started this when they were todlers and they still insist on doing it now, although more often than not it's one of them that reads it to us these days! We sometimes read 'A Christmas Carol' during the week before Christmas too.

The children have stockings on Christmas morning which they usually open in our bed before going down to breakfast. We don't open the under the tree presents until just before lunch and sometimes leave a few until late afternoon as well. We are staying home alone this year so we'll ring our families mid morning and sit down to lunch at around 1.30. The afternoon will be spent playing games and we'll sometimes go out for a walk too if it's not raining.

We were away last Christmas, so we didn't do the usual things and it's our last one in the UK this year, so we'll really enjoy the traditions this time.

Reading Voices 'day' and how she likes to watch a movie on Xmas Eve made me remember that there is a lovely movie on this Sunday afternoon, but i cant remember what it is now !!!!!

Watch out for it anyway. I love all the Xmas movies on the run up to christmas. They make me really excited and they all have the awwwww factor.

I think my fav silly movie though is National Lampoons Xmas Vacation (i think thats what its called). It makes me laugh when he is putting all the millions of lights on the house ... which dont work :laugh: Its just like my house.

Bonsai Wrote:Reading Voices 'day' and how she likes to watch a movie on Xmas Eve made me remember that there is a lovely movie on this Sunday afternoon, but i cant remember what it is now !!!!!

Isn't it Miracle on 34th street or something like that keep seeing adverts for it havn't seen it but will probably sit down and watch it (thats if the hubby will let me) it looks a really nice christmassy film

my dad is always the 1st to get up (at around 7am after being bugged to death by my little sister - used to be me when i could actually open my eyes before 10am!). He goes down stairs on his own to make my mum a cup of tea so that she'll get up, and he always shouts 'santa hasn't been!' up to us all. When younger i used to be so used to it that i knew he was joking but there was always that 'what if' doubt in my mind! how cruel is my father!

then we all open prezzies one at a time so they last a while and we get to c what everyone has got! And it takes ages! then we wait for relatives to drop by and then go to my nans for xmas dinner! where we all have to sit with paper hats on our heads for the whole duration!

we all then watch eastenders and other xmas tv while trying to keep my little sister occupied by getting out the millions of toys she gets from santa!